March Town manager Mel Mattless has seen a four-month pursuit of an attacking talent pay off.

The Hares chief completed the capture of Chatteris Town captain Ben Matthews earlier this week.

And Mattless is hopeful his new recruit can help fire the Hares back up the Thurlow Nunn First Division table after a worrying slump.

They have lost their last four league games and also went down 3-0 to the Cambridge United Development side in the quarter-finals of the Cambs Invitation Cup on Tuesday night. Matthews made his debut as a second-half substitute in that game.

Mattless said: “I’ve been chasing Ben ever since he played against us in pre-season for Chatteris. It is a signing I’m really excited about.

“Ben comes with a great pedigree and reputation around the local area.

“He is a very intelligent player with bags of quality. He was carrying a bit of a hamstring problem, but he managed 25 minutes on Tuesday night and hopefully we can now build him up towards full games.

“It’s no secret we’ve been struggling for goals in the past few weeks since we lost Toby Allen and hopefully Ben can help to address that.”

The capture of Matthews comes hot on the heels of the arrival of another Chatteris Town player at the GER.

Midfielder Gary Smith made his debut as a substitute last Saturday as a miserable run of form continued for Mattless’ men when suffering a 3-1 home defeat at the hands of Great Oakley. Chris Gunkel hit their goal.

March have slid to 16th in the First Division standings and are in desperate need of a victory when travelling to second-bottom Team Bury tomorrow.

They’ll certainly need to tighten up defensively if that is to happen after leaking 13 goals during their four-match losing run.

Mattless added: “We played really well in our last win against Holland FC, but the wheels have fallen off since then.

“Injuries and suspensions have hit us hard and we’ve not been playing well either to be totally honest.

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